Imagine you want to develop software. Or sell a product. Or do digital marketing. No matter what industry or department you work in - the following article applies to you:
You use a whole bunch of applications for your daily work - for data acquisition, documentation, development, reporting... Inevitably, there is always a point where the flow comes to a standstill. Because you are forced to copy and paste data from one programme to the next. Or because you have to look something up in another application. Annoying!
Now imagine you hear about a new tool that solves exactly the problem that is currently not being solved. It's not even that expensive and the interface is much more modern than that of your current tool. So you get down to business and convince your team colleagues and then management to buy the new super tool. A story with a happy ending, right?
Wrong! Applications for silos always cause trouble.
As it is hardly possible in our complex world to work with one powerful tool for everything, we use various specialised applications. There is nothing wrong with this (on the contrary), as long as they are intelligently connected to each other. Even small programmes are generally not intended to solve an individual problem, but to support company-wide processes. If all these applications are used in the service of a common process, they form a toolchain.
Toolfair would be a more appropriate term in many companies. Different departments use different tools that utilise the same infrastructure (and not even that is always the case), but are not or only insufficiently connected with each other. How are you supposed to work together on the big picture in this environment?
For example, the support team does not have an overview of all of a customer's purchases because it does not have access to the sales database. The service employee cannot see which bugs in the application will soon be fixed by the developers. And although management sees a slump in the sales curve, they first have to collate data from various sources to understand what could be behind it. The result: frustration - among customers and employees.
An intelligent toolchain is not just a collection of detached specialised applications, but passes on the data required by the next point - in the very best case, automatically. This minimises effort for employees and sources of error. Take the following five steps to transform your toolfair into a toolchain:
Define requirements Before you start looking for solutions, you should first know your problem. So not: ‘We need a new CRM’, but ‘We want support and sales to be able to exchange customer data so that we can help our customers better’. Or ‘We want code changes to automatically trigger new tests in the test system.’
You don't define these requirements in private, but together with representatives from all departments that are somehow affected by the problem (or its consequences). In order not to forget anyone, it helps to take a look at the overall process.
Is your overall process not visualised anywhere? Then you now know what to do first.
Check inventory It is bizarre how many expensive programmes are purchased and then remain largely unused. Before you look around for new tools to fulfil your defined requirements, it is therefore worth taking a look at your own company. Perhaps the marketing team is already using a tool for their email campaigns that is ideal for tracking customer activity. Or the development team uses a wiki that is known as a tried-and-tested intranet. The fewer tools you have in use, the lower the costs. And the exchange of data is also easier.
Clarify interfaces Speaking of data exchange: Once you have agreed on an application, you need to determine which other tools it should communicate with. As is so often the case, the devil is in the detail: you should define exactly which data should (and may!) be transferred from which tool to which tool. Theoretically, anything can be connected to anything. However, some interfaces are so complex that they are disproportionate to their benefits. In practice, you suddenly find yourself exporting CSV files or similar as workarounds - a pattern that should actually be avoided with the new tool.
Ensure data protection Yes, this is also part of the reality of a toolchain. Not everything that teams and departments would like to exchange is permitted. It is therefore important to develop authorisation concepts for all tools involved or to review existing authorisations so that only the data that is necessary for the work step can be accessed. ‘As much as necessary, as little as possible’ is the motto. The question of where a tool is hosted is also crucial.
Document the process When a tool fits into the chain, more than one working process is affected. These changes should be documented precisely so that everyone knows how and for what purpose the new application is being used. This ensures data hygiene, which underpins a smooth overall process.
By following these steps, you will gradually achieve a toolchain that supports your company's workflows, saves time and breaks down silos. And that is guaranteed to be more fun than a toolfair.
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